Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Mary Downing Hahn

Aug 2008 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

Just before summer begins, 13-year-old Ali finds an odd photograph in the attic. She knows the two children in it are her mother, Claire, and her aunt Dulcie. But who’s the third person, the one who’s been torn out of the picture?

Ali figures she’ll find out while she’s vacationing in Maine with Dulcie and her four-year-old daughter, Emma, in the house where Ali’s mother’s family used to spend summers. All hopes for relaxation are quashed shortly after their arrival, though, when the girls meet Sissy, a kid who’s mean and spiteful and a bad influence on Emma.

Strangest of all, Sissy keeps talking about a girl named Teresa who drowned under mysterious circumstances back when Claire and Dulcie were kids, and whose body was never found. At first Ali thinks Sissy’s just trying to scare her with a ghost story, but soon she discovers the real reason why Sissy is so angry. . . . Mary Downing Hahn is at her chilling best in this new supernatural tale that’s certain to send shivers down her readers’ spines.

Ratings and reviews

I love the fact that this book is a ghost story but yet its really not that scary this story is basically about where a girl named Ali girls in the attic and go through a box of old books and find the picture / photograph of her mother clair and her aunt Dulcie a tear in the picture where another girl is. the first letter of the girls name is t later in the book ali finds out that girl's name is Teresa

Amesbury good story but everytime I read it's my niece she was scared so if you're under 8 years old I think ushould not read it

While looking for a book to read, Ali finds an old photograph of her mother and aunt. The strange thing is the picture has the arm of another girl but nothing else. That section has been torn away. When she asks her mother about the picture she behaves strangely. Showing the photo to her father he informs Ali that her mother and aunt used to spend their summers at Sycamore Lake and they still own the cabin there. He suggests they spend some time there over the summer. Her mother refuses and suddenly gets one of her headaches. Then her Aunt Dulcie and niece Emma show up and inform them that they are going to fix up the cabin so she can work on her art and prepare for a showing. She wants to take Ali with her to act as a babysitter. Her mother is outraged but finally gives in. What is it that has her so upset? Why does she not want to go back to the cabin? Who is the mysterious girl missing from the picture? The answers to all of these questions will have to be answered by Ali as she spends her summer at the cabin. This was another one of Mary Downing Hahn's great ghost stories. This one didn't creep me out as much as a lot of her books do but it still gave me goosebumps at times.

About the author

Mary Downing Hahn’s many acclaimed novels include such beloved ghost stories as Wait Till Helen Comes, Deep and Dark and Dangerous, and Took. A former librarian, she has received more than fifty child-voted state awards for her work. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with a cat named Nixi.